success stories
Corey admits that he messed up. He was the one who didn't keep as close track of his transactions as he should have, and overdrafted his account. It was
Bank of America's policies, however, that resulted in his being hit with fifteen
overdraft fees at $35 each, for a total of $525 over the course of a weekend. Corey knew that he was in the wrong, but thought that these fees were unfair, and also more than he could afford. So what did he do? He used what he's learned from reading Consumerist to make his case to the people in charge.
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success stories
Jiffy Lube agreed to pay Alison over $250 after botching routine work that forced her to interrupt her road trip for emergency car repairs. Alison's mechanic said that
Jiffy Lube's attempted transmission fluid flush could have caused "catastrophic car damage" if left unfixed. Jiffy Lube denied all responsibility until Alison fired off an Executive Email Carpet Bomb to C.E.O. Rick Altizer, who agreed not only to reimburse for the repairs, but refunded the original cost of the transmission fluid flush, and tossed in a few coupons for free oil changes.
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success stories
Bank of America messed up Andy's credit score by failing to send him credit card statements or giving him online access to an old account he only recently started using again. They also refused to work with him over the phone, telling him each time he called that they had no record of his previous conversations with customer service and therefore no reason to believe him.
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eecb
For the past two years, Time Warner has charged Eric $10 per month above its published rates. Eric called and made what he thought was a fair offer: In exchange for refunding only one year's worth of overcharges, he would add a premium cable service. A Time Warner supervisor responded with: "this is not let's make a deal," and then offered to refund three months worth of overcharges. Offended and armed with a reasonable request, Eric decided to unleash the mighty Executive Email Carpet Bomb.
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appliances
Consumer affairs columnist (and my former colleague) Dan Higgins stumbled upon a well-guarded secret—the real reason the
Maytag repairman has nothing to do. It isn't because the appliances are so reliable. No, apparently it's because Maytag dispatches Sears repairmen to make warranty repairs, then refuses to reimburse customers because Sears isn't an authorized repair provider. At least that's what happened to
this nice elderly lady.
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success stories
Ryan convinced
Bank of America to drop their demand for $315 from nine overdraft fees by sending a well-crafted
Executive Email Carpet Bomb. Ryan admitted that he was wrong to expect his checks to clear so quickly, but gently reminded the bank that nine overdraft fees was excessive, and explained that he would consider taking his business elsewhere if they thought this was an acceptable way to treat a long-time customer. Two days later, the fees were gone.
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best buy
An anonymous tipster sent in an updated list of
contact info for some of the people working at the top of the
Best Buy food chain. Remember, don't bug them until you've exhausted all other options.
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success stories
Chris was surprised to find that T-Mobile didn't cancel his account as promised a few months ago. What's worse, the note on his account that mentioned his cancellation request was missing, and nobody at customer service would help him. Chri works for a "very large consumer electronics company" that he won't name (we're pretty sure it's Apple) and thinks customer service is important, so he gave up on the CSR angle and instead came to our site to find
contact info for T-Mobile executives. One EECB later, Chris is free from T-Mobile and the ETF they tried to apply.
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phone numbers
Here's a big sexy pile of escalated T-mobile contact info in case you have an intractable complaint that regular
customer service can't or won't help out with. Besides the senior management and internal reporting division, It includes a way to figure out
how to dial a whole mess of
executive customer service reps, as well as which specific government bodies to file complaints with the situation warrant.
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complaints
You know what they need to make? A zombie film starring reanimated furniture. The whole walking corpse thing is just so done. But an undead end table stalking you through your house and hacking through the closet door to reveal your pathetic hiding spot and devour your flesh? Now that's something I'd pay to see, even if it wasn't in 3- as, apparently, all movies will be in the future. Until that cinematic masterpiece hits the silver screen, I guess Steve's story of how
Ashley Furniture wouldn't stop calling him until he sent their headquarters an
Executive Email Carpet Bomb will have to suffice...
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success stories
An
EZ Lube store in California overcharged Timothy for a new cabin filter when he went to get his oil changed. The mechanic managed to do this by quizzing Timothy on his knowledge of
air filters, then using that info to make vague assurances that sounded good but didn't convey the actual, final price. Timothy admits that he let his guard down, but when he was hit with the final bill, he regained his consumerist footing and began to take steps to remedy the situation—and he succeeded.
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contact info
It's not uncommon to run into a dead end when trying to resolve your Xbox 360 or
Xbox Live issues with the official customer support channels, which is why sometimes you have no recourse other than to try to get the attention of the executives at
Microsoft. Here are some addresses to try, culled from the
Penny Arcade forums.
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united
We all know that just because a rep on the phone promises you something, that doesn't mean it's necessarily true. But in Alan's case, two different United reps both confirmed, repeatedly—he asked several times before completing the purchase and again before canceling—that he could cancel his tickets within 24 hours of purchase without paying a fee. A week after he canceled, he was hit with a $150 non-refundable fee that one United rep admitted was a new policy that wasn't in writing—but United still refused to reverse it.
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success stories
R wanted to get started paying off her
Capital One credit card but after missing one month's payment she started a fee pigpile. She got overlimit fees, and then so many extra fees started piling on that she wasn't ever able to pay them off enough to bring her balance back under her credit limit. R wanted to get started on
debt reduction snowball method but could never get that first ball started because the fees were too high. Tugs at the regular customer service line to try to get some fees waived were fruitless. To untangle this
Gordian Knot R had to pull out her mighty sword of
executive customer service. Her story, inside...
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Helpful Reminders
Do not launch an
Executive Email Carpet Bomb against your own company or it will explode in your face. Reader E discovered this the hard way when he tried to use an E.E.C.B. to convince the bank where he worked to reverse $300 worth of overdraft fees.
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